Another San Angelo Area School District Ditches Virtual Classes

SAN ANGELO, TX — Virtual classrooms weren’t working well for some school districts where superintendents are ending remote instruction. Last week, Superintendent Ron Cline at Paint Rock ISD announced his district was ending virtual classes. All students were to report in-person starting Monday, Oct. 26.

Following Cline, Superintendent Dr. David Walker announced that Christoval ISD was also ending virtual instruction. Walker provided key data points that convinced him virtual instruction was not working.

Virtual learners — students who attended class via computer remotely — had a whopping 21 percent failure rate for the first six weeks. The first six weeks is the first grading period for Christoval ISD. In comparison, students physically attending school for in-person classroom instruction only realized a five percent failure rate.

“Supervision is critical in a learning setting,” Walker said. Among the benefits are the ability to provide immediate feedback, the ability of classroom instructors to check for understanding, and to keep the students on task, he said. In Christoval, of the 567 students, only about 51 opted for virtual class the first six weeks grading period. For this six weeks grading period, that number shrub to less than 34.

Back in Paint Rock, Superintendent Cline said many more school districts are considering ending virtual instruction based on conversations he had with other education leaders throughout Region 15. Texas’ Education Service Center 15 Director Dr. Casey Callahan said he has taken surveys of superintendents about virtual learning but has not published anything public. The mostly informal survey ESC 15 conducted prompted a discussion about the sustainability of virtual learning at the last meeting of area superintendents. Cline, who was there, said that his takeaway was that many more, especially smaller school districts, will end virtual learning soon if not already.

At the San Angelo ISD, 4,250 out of 14,034 students were enrolled in what the district branded their Virtual Learning Academy (VLA) in the first grading period of the 2020-2021 school year, as reported at the last meeting of their Board of Trustees. For the next grading period that began last week, the number of participants in the VLA dropped by approximately 1,750 to 2,500. San Angelo ISD ran a campaign this month to allow parents of VLA students to opt back to in-classroom instruction for the second grading period. San Angelo ISD Superintendent Dr. Carl Dethloff said his leadership team is closely monitoring VLA performance and participation — and most importantly, student performance — but he was not ready to make any major decisions about VLA for the remainder of 2020.

The recent uptick in new COVID-19 infections in the Concho Valley and the Big Country may prompt some superintendents to keep virtual learning as an option a while longer, Callahan said. The trends of this pandemic are very dynamic right now.

Yet, COVID-19 has so far been a low risk for public schools here. Since Oct. 6, the San Angelo ISD has reported 33 COVID-19 cases out of about 10,000 students in class. In Christoval since Sept. 9, there have been three cases out of a combined campus student body of 567. Walker recalled prior to the pandemic, he closed his schools twice for the flu. Once because too many on his staff had called in sick, the other time last year because too many students had called in sick.

There has been a success story concerning virtual learning that occurred in a way not originally anticipated. In response to the pandemic, Grape Creek ISD developed a distance learning system using Google apps such as the Google Classroom. Soon, the district discovered a use the system for other purposes than social distancing. With their virtual learning in place and standardized on the Google platform, instead of closing for inclement weather expected Tuesday, the district will still have class for all students even though the school buildings will be closed. Grape Creek ISD is taking a ‘something is better than nothing’ approach by using remote learning technology to prevent absences due to bad weather.

As for Christoval ISD and Superintendent Walker, he is mostly done with virtual learning. In a letter he wrote to parents and guardians late last week, he suggested to parents, “If you do not want your child to return to Face-to-Face Learning, you have the right to choose another school district or home school as options.”

All Christoval ISD students must return in-person to classrooms on Nov. 2.

Walker said his district is willing and ready to help keep a student in class even if virtual instruction is the best option but in very extreme cases. An example of an extreme case is an ailing parent or grandparent who is susceptible to infectious diseases who is living in the same home as the student. However, he said in those cases his district would and could have made exceptions anyway, even before the pandemic response began in March.